WW 2 (The Brass Box)
The boy opened the cold, hard lid of the brass box with trembling fingers. His back still burned from the good whippings served by his two assailants, who had watched him open the rusty golden cubic box, just barely big enough to fit him in. He would be stuck in a fetal position for God knows how long. "Get in," ordered one of the aggressors, landing a strong smack on the back of the boy's head to emphasize his point. The boy whimpered the slightest bit and crawled into the tiny cube, all the while thinking about his loving parents who once adored and cared for him, who would never let any harm like this come to him... But he knew that was impossible. It would never happen now. "Dirty piece of shit," the other assailant grumbled. "Stupid, incompetent, dirty piece of shit." The first assailant shut the brass lid shut without letting the boy get into a comfortable position. He squirmed within the prison but he dared not beg for mercy - doing so would only bring worse consequences. He could hear a dull, hum-like noise coming from outside the box, the hum sounding very ominous and foreshadowing. The boy took a peek at what was going on through a tiny crack on the metallic box's corners and saw his two captors struggling to drag a large, plastic container filled to the top with some unknown content. They placed it on a collapsable camping table and threw off the lid. From the crack of the brass box's corners the boy could see one of the assailants bring forth a plastic cup and scoop the material inside the cylindrical container. When she drew it out, something alive and writhing was in there. The assailant stepped up to the brass box and opened the lid the tiniest bit. The boy caught a glimpse of the contents in the cup and recognized them instantly: they were all a collection of arthropods from his gigantic bug collection, kept in a glass tank in his room for him to observe. He had no idea they would ever be used against him. The boy also caught a glimpse of his captor, a scowl of indignation on her face. She would have never done this to him... "You have disrespected me and your father for the last time. You are no true son of ours!" his mother snapped, dumping the cup of wriggling arthropods into the torture box for her son to drown in - drown in the squishy sea of legs and segments and feelers, crawling all over the boy and tormenting him with relentless stinging bites. His mother frantically scooped more centipedes with the cups and continued dumping the contents into the box until it was full to the brim, then slammed the heavy lid shut. All the while the boy screamed blue murder. After a while the boy stopped struggling and let the bugs crawl across his skin and nip time to time along the way. He knew he deserved it. It was punishment for disrespecting his parents who had cared for him so much. The boy had no idea how long he would be forced to stay inside, but as he heard the muffled sounds of his parents' retreating footsteps, he knew that he would not see the light of day for a long time.